When comparing TCL S517 55" (55S517) vs Samsung MU6300 43" (UN43MU6300), the Slant community recommends TCL S517 55" (55S517) for most people. In the question“What are the best TVs?”TCL S517 55" (55S517) is ranked 27th while Samsung MU6300 43" (UN43MU6300) is ranked 149th. The most important reason people chose TCL S517 55" (55S517) is:

The TCL S517 is a decent option for pretty much everything, be it gaming, movies, sports, or HDR content. It has noteworthy picture quality, good all-around responsiveness, decent smart features, nice motion handling, and, most importantly, a great price.

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Specs

Size55"

Native Contrast6000 : 1

Available Sizes43", 49", 55", 65"

EthernetYes

For GamesYes

For MoviesYes

For SportsYes

HDMI3 x HDMI (v2.0)

HDRHDR10, Dolby Vision

Local DimmingNo

ProcessorDual-Core

Refresh Rate (Native)60Hz

Resolution3840 x 2160

Smart TV OSRoku TV 8.0

USB1 x USB (2.0)

Weight32 lbs (14.5 kg)

Wi-FiYes (802.11ac )

Size43"

Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking

Pros

Pro

A well-rounded option

The TCL S517 is a decent option for pretty much everything, be it gaming, movies, sports, or HDR content. It has noteworthy picture quality, good all-around responsiveness, decent smart features, nice motion handling, and, most importantly, a great price.

Pro

Impressive picture quality

In terms of picture quality the S517 is comparable to high-end TVs. It displays remarkably deep blacks due to its great contrast and reproduces details in color very well due to its good color gradient.

The 6000:1 native contrast ratio allows the TV to reproduce dark scenes particularly well. It is easily one of the best in this price range – it’s often compared to high-end counterparts.

The S517 has superb black uniformity and contrast that create pleasant, deep blacks. They are much better than those of the similarly-priced competitors. The maximum deviation sits at around 1.02% .

The TV is good at capturing small differences in color such as skin tones, green colors in nature, details in shadows, etc. This is because of the color gradient, which is on par with other options of the same price. There is almost no banding and the standard deviation of color doesn't go past 0,11%.

Pro

HDR playback

The S517 is a much better fit for HDR content and HDR gaming than its competitors due to the wide color gamut, decent color depth, and high contrast.

The TV can display a lot more colors than its similarly-priced counterparts. The coverage of the Digital Cinema P3 color space is very good - 90%.

The color depth is on par with competing options. The S517 has 10-bit color depth, which means that it can display approximately 1.07 billion colors in total. This is important for HDR content because HDR media takes advantage of 10-bit.

The S517 can display deep blacks in the HDR mode because of it's high native contrast ratio of 6000:1, which is easily one of the best in the given price range.

The TV can also play all HDR content, because it supports both standard formats of HDR - HDR10 and Dolby Vision. They enhance the viewing experience by editing the metadata, that is, the extra information that tells the TV how to display HDR. The formats differ in the way they deal with it however - Dolby Vision edits the picture on a per scene basis, whereas HDR10 edits everything at the start of the video.

Pro

Handles 4K scaling well

The S517 does a reasonably good job with upscaling most content to 4K quality, be it 480p DVDs, HDTV or full HD Blu-rays.

Pro

Optional video smoothing feature

The S517 offers the possibility to make movement in videos smoother, also known as the "soap opera effect". This is done by making the TV take two frames and try to guess what would a frame in between of those look like, also known as motion interpolation. The frame rate can interpolate up to 60 frames per second.

Pro

Accessible inputs

All of the inputs are conveniently placed on the side of the S517, so you won't have to worry about leaving space between a wall and the TV.

Pro

Well calibrated out-of-the-box

The picture quality when you first open the TV up is quite decent. The only settings that could potentially require tweaking are grey inaccuracy and color inaccuracy. Either way, these are things that most people won't even notice.

Pro

Decent for use as a PC monitor

The S517 offers a pleasant PC monitor experience not only due to the good responsiveness, but also because of the video signal's compression.

The TV won't make text appear blurry while connected to a PC because the signal has no compression and transports color data and luminance fully. This is also known as chroma 4:4:4, and the “Computer” and “Game” modes display it properly at 60Hz.

Pro

Functional mobile app

The mobile remote app for both iOS or Android can fully and comfortably substitute the real remote – launch apps, input text in apps, control most TV settings, etc.

Also, colors can easily be adjusted close to perfection thanks to the app’s calibration menu.

Pro

Suitable for gaming

The S517 is fit for all gamers because it offers a clear, lag-free experience. The TV is very responsive - it has struck a good balance between decent refresh rate, solid input lag, and good response time.

The TV is an ideal choice for console gaming in terms of its native refresh rate. It caps at 60Hz, which is perfect since most games won't benefit from anything higher than this.

The S517 is fast. An action shows on the screen in around 18 miliseconds, which can make the difference between managing to get a frag or waiting for a respawn. The time doesn't substantially increase when gaming in HDR or 4K either - it goes up to roughly 20.5 ms. The only thing to remember is to keep "Game" mode enabled for the lowest possible input lag.

The TCL S517 also handles motion and fast-paced content quite well, it has a good response time. This makes sure you can keep up with fast-moving objects and a lot of action without it all appearing blurry. A full pixel color transition takes only 15.8 ms.

Pro

Great smart features

The S517 comes with the Roku TV smart platform, which provides a comfortable interface and a big app selection.

The interface is quite basic and easy to overlook. It’s smooth and simple to swap to your favorite apps.

Roku TV offers a huge app store with all the most popular apps – Netflix, YouTube, Hulu Plus, Amazon Instant, HBO Go, Vudu and much more. Some apps are even absent from other TV manufacturers Smart TV platforms and unique to Roku.

Pro

Decent overall image quality

In its range, the Samsung MU6300 has better than average picture quality because of the TV’s high native contrast ratio, excellent black uniformity, and relatively high SDR peak brightness.

The TV does almost flawless dark scene reproduction. It has the highest contrast ratio in its range at 5768:1, which allows it to recreate rich and immersive dark scenes which are further enhanced by the TV’s excellent black uniformity. In fact, the MU6300 has the best black consistency out of all of its closest competitors, including the VIZIO M-series and Sony X720E.

Pro

Good for gaming

The Samsung MU6300 has all the bits and pieces needed for a good gaming TV. It has the input lag of 20.2 ms which allows it to do a decent job in fast-paced gaming. Additionally, the TV is perfectly suitable for HDR gaming, since its input lag remains low even while the TV is processing high-bandwidth 4K HDR input.

Pro

Suitable for watching sports

The TV’s motion blur is handled by its relatively fast pixel response time which ensures that even fast moving objects do not leave overly long trails. Its full response time of 18.7 ms is on par with its main competitors, like the Sony X720E and VIZIO M-series.

While the MU6300’s color uniformity may not be as good as its main competitors, the TV is still capable of displaying attractive and uniform football, hockey, and golf fields.

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Cons

Con

Bad viewing angle

The S517 is a bad choice for a wide room because colors and blacks shift when viewed even slightly off center.

Basically, leaning sideward just a little bit will drastically alter what you see. Colors shift at 18 degrees, brightness shifts at 28 degrees, but the blacks shift at the extremely tiny angle of 9 degrees.

Con

Struggles with reflections

While the S517 is okay for dimmer environments, the weakness shows in bright rooms and especially rooms with the light source facing the TV. The reflection handling of the TV is a bit worse than that of its competitors. It reflects approximately 6% of light off the screen.

Con

HDR content lacks brightness

Small bright details in dark scenes won’t stand out. Unfortunately, this is usually the case with TVs in this price range. The TV's brightness for HDR media peaks at only 273 nits. Moreover, the TV doesn't support local dimming, which is also a big drawback for HDR content.

Con

Inconvenient calibration access

The only way to access the calibration menu is via the mobile app. This might be uncomfortable for people without smartphones or for people who prefer all control on the real remote.

Con

Some dirty screen effect is present

This might cause some discomfort to sports fans because the playing surface might look darker at points. The S517's gray uniformity is decent at best, which, unfortunately, is often the case for lower-end TVs. The image is a little darker around the edges and the middle of the TV. The standard deviation of sits at around 3.1%.

Con

Runs ads

The main interface page contains big advertisements that can’t be disabled.

There’s also a “Featured” tab that promotes all kinds of apps and channels.

Con

Can't overcome glare

The S517 is better fit for dim environments or dark room viewing, since the brightness can’t peak very high, only at 277 nits. This is common for TVs in this price range.

Con

Doesn’t look good from an angle

The picture quality of this TV is terrible when the angle between the viewer and the panel is greater than 10 degrees because at this point the viewer will experience noticeable black level degradation. Once the viewing angle reaches 21 degrees, all the other colors will start to degrade. This property makes the Samsung MU6300 not suitable for watching with a crowd.

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